


Gold

by Blue_Finch



Series: For Better or Worse [4]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:53:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1875507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Finch/pseuds/Blue_Finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sort of a goodbye to the Library</p><p>Managerie made a lovely banner for this story.<br/>Thank you so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt the color gold and library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Williams couldn't believe the address listed on his work assignment card for the day. The security guard at the construction site's main entrance had handed him it to John after checking his company issued ID. “The supervisor wants you there today Williams.”
> 
> Williams had driven past the address's building every Sunday the past four months in his beat-up Chevy Silverado and today was only Tuesday. Only one day ago the old library had still appeared to be a long ago suspended renovation venture and certainly not one GHC had ever been involved in. If John had been surprised earlier, what he had felt before was replaced by total shock and then an overwhelming disappointment. The golden horizon of a rising sun beyond a city skyline, the company's logo, was emblazoned on a banner now hanging from rebuilt scaffolding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Through the help of an old nemesis, John in his post season three identity returns to The Library.

Banner by my beta and good friend Menagerie

 

John Williams couldn't believe the address listed on his work assignment card for the day. The security guard at the construction site's main entrance had handed him it to John after checking his company issued ID. “The supervisor wants you there today Williams.”

Williams had started the job at GHC construction four months ago as a general laborer which for this company usually meant on-site clean up. John spent long hours pushing around a wheelbarrow gathering up waste construction materials, pushing it out of the building, and dumping its contents into a pile. The scrap lumber, drywall, tile, or whatever remnants of what the builders were using that day would be scooped up eventually by a loader into a waiting dump truck which hauled the refuse away.

The work was hard and although the over forty Williams had never been soft or considered out of shape, it had made his body leaner, his muscles more toned than they had been in years. If not for the proliferation of silver streaking his dark hair and a life hardened face, John could be mistaken for one of the other workers there half his age.

It was a menial job like thousands of others in the city that thousands of ordinary people went to everyday. There was nothing to the work that would draw attention from the eye in the sky and maybe that was why he had ended up at GHC last spring, coming to this very site for the past ninety days.

GHC's recent hire had spent his first thirty days with the company on probation being shuffled from site to site. Yet after Williams had been hired full time, the twin high rise apartment’s development project had been a semi-permanent placement. It came as bit of a surprise, although not completely unexpected, to be pulled off the job here and sent to the address on the card.

John certainly hadn't been sent to every construction location of the company, of which there were many in the five Boroughs, but the company logo was easily recognizable and Williams knew what a GHC venture was without having worked there.

Williams had driven past the address's building every Sunday the past four months in his beat-up Chevy Silverado and today was only Tuesday. Only one day ago the old library had still appeared to be a long ago suspended renovation venture and certainly not one GHC had ever been involved in. If John had been surprised earlier, what he had felt before was replaced by total shock and then an overwhelming disappointment. The golden horizon of a rising sun beyond a city skyline, the company's logo, was emblazoned on a banner now hanging from rebuilt scaffolding.

There was a sectioned off part of the street marked with 'Parking for GHC vehicles only' that he pulled the Silverado into, parking behind the only other vehicle, a black Toyota Tundra with the GHC logo painted on its side. Hanging his company issued vehicle tag from the rear view mirror, John got out of his truck looking up at the building that held so many memories.

The building's entrance Williams had walked through many times past; finding the old wooden double doors was easy and he opened the unlocked one. On the main floor there was one other man wearing a blue work jacket, the company's name in gold lettering printed on the coat's back, hammering a nail into the packing crate he was assembling. When the man turned upon hearing the door closing, Williams was stunned to see that the man, shorter than John and with dark hair, had a long scar from forehead to mid cheek under his right eye. The disfigurement wasn't what had made him stop in his track; the man was someone from a life John was no longer a part of.

“You're Williams?” Burnell, the name embroidered on the jacket's front, asked giving no indication he knew John from before. When Williams nodded an affirmative, Burnell introduced himself as the foreman in charge of the renovation. The scar faced man pointed the hammer in his hand around the room indicating the damage from vandalism that needed to be taken care of before he could bring a crew in. The books scattered around the main floor needed to be crated up in order for them to be moved elsewhere and restored. The building's new owner, a lover of books, did not wish for any of them to be destroyed. The foreman pointed up the stairs, finishing his instructions by telling Williams the rest of the floors were in better shape, books just being pulled off the shelves, but there was other damage that just needed to be cleared up and disposed of.

The other man looked at his watch before telling Williams he had to leave, this job only needed one worker for the day and the foreman had to go to the company headquarters and choose the men he would need on the crew.

Burnell stopped in front of John, “The boss thought you would want to handle this on your own.” He handed Williams the hammer and a set of keys and winked, “Don't forget to lock up when you leave.” Burnell had known exactly who Williams was, the same as John was aware of the real identity of the marked man.

After the ersatz foreman left, Williams put the keys in his jeans pocket and the hammer on one of the empty crates. Nothing much had changed in the old lobby since the day John Reese, that was what he was known by then, had first followed another smaller limping man through the double doors. Books were still strewn across the floor, dust covering them and everything else in the foyer. All except for a small pathway leading to the staircase and where recent footfalls had tracked the fine powder away visible on the marble floor.

Those tracks were too many for one man inspecting a building to have left in one day. Reese guessed they were made by those that had come looking, to hunt down or kill John and his handicapped friend months ago. The two men had left this old building that fateful day and assumed new and separate identities. Reese had become Williams and his friend? John didn't know.

Reese had been army and then CIA. John had obeyed orders without question, including carrying out assassinations. As a covert agent he had done things that Reese wasn't proud of, even believing he had become nothing more than a cold-blooded killer. Yet, the former soldier had been rewarded for that loyalty with betrayal. John Reese had reached the lowest point in his life when the strange little man with his wire rimmed glasses and Tin-tin haircut had reached out offering the deceived operative a life line: a new purpose and an unusual job.

Now Reese was back here, under the guise of a construction worker known as John Williams, and trying to figure out how and why an employee of an old nemesis was posing as a GHC foreman. It wasn't hard to figure out this was some elaborate plan to get Reese back into the old library without setting off warning bells.

The eccentric older man's unusual job offer was to help save innocent people using John's unique skill set. Harold Finch, Mr. Finch as he wanted to be called, had built a supercomputer for the government to predict terrorist threats, to prevent mass casualty events. Only the computer could also predict threats to single individuals. The computer and all its servers were in the government's hands but Finch still had a back door into the system. The Machine, as they called it, let him know about those innocents in trouble.

Only The Machine was a power another organization, Decima, wanted to control and when that failed, the group found another machine. Through an elaborate plan, Decima and its leader fooled the government into abandoning The Machine and using the group's computer system to now prevent terrorist acts.

That organization and its supercomputer Samaritan was why Finch, Reese and five others had had to go into hiding. They were the only people with the power to destroy the other system and subvert what other plans Decima might have. Samaritan was the eye in the sky and the reasoning for this obvious plot to get John to The Library unobserved. Only why?

John ascended the winding staircase to the second floor. The metal gate Finch had closed, even in their haste to leave, was now wide open, the destroyed lock still lying on the floor. The crushing disappointment he had felt outside returned. The main room that had once been their headquarters was a wreck. Shattered glass was everywhere; the table that had once held Finch's computers was overturned. The monitors had been smashed beyond recognition, and the computer towers were gone, their connections ripped from them, wires left hanging.

The old wooden filing cabinets had their drawers pulled open, but at least the contents weren't dumped. Pictures and clippings, remembrances of innocents lost or saved that Finch had painstakingly pinned to a cork reminder board and connected by colored yarn, had been ripped down.

Their dog Bear's bed along with his food and water containers were scattered around in the mess. John gave the dog to Harold for the lame man's protection but the canine had always remained their dog.

There was a small waste dumpster pushed along an empty wall. How and when it was brought up here Reese didn't know, but at a loss for what else he could do for now a sullen John began cleaning up the mess.

It had been drummed into Reese during his years in the army and even more so after joining the agency, to never get attached to anything, to never care. Seeing all this, now, John thought he should have let them succeed in making him cold and unfeeling. This place, the job, the odd limping bespectacled man, John had come to love. The Library had been like a home, the job his purpose, and Finch a light for John who had once been surrounded by darkness. Maybe if Reese had learned to remain detached bitterness wouldn't be welling up in him now.

The broken monitors he tossed in the dumpster first along with all the ruined cables, upset Finch's equipment had been destroyed so viciously. The plush dog bed now filled with shards and slivers of glass Reese angrily chucked into the trash bin next.

As the now furious man turned to look around and find something else to vent his ire on, a glint of golden light from the partially stained glass window caught his eye. John's rage vanished as memories of Finch looking out that window flooded his mind.

The window was stained with a gold stripe in the shape of a square, the glass one way.

The most vivid remembrance of Harold dressed in a vest and a tie the color of amaranth, drinking tea from his favorite cup while gazing out that window, Finch's thoughts a million miles away, clutched at Reese's heart. John had loved, no, still loved that man so.

The two had started out as strangers. Finch, so wary of the former operative who was now his employee, tried to keep Reese at arm's length. Only John had broken through those walls Finch had built to protect himself and they had become friends. Somewhere along the way and most unexpectedly for them both, the love they had for each other as friends changed into something more. After denying their true feelings, to one another and even to themselves, for too long, they had finally become lovers. This made their separation that much more painful, four weeks later they had to part. Reese didn't have any idea where Finch was, how he was or even who he was.

John drawn by the flicker of gold, moved to where his memory’s illusion had once stood, to look out that same window. His own thoughts were now far away in a motel room in D.C. remembering the night the two had first made love, when someone stepping in the broken glass snapped his mind back to the present, reflexes taking over making his body ready to spring into action.

There was no threat, only a hallucination. Only mirages don't make noise. Nonetheless, Reese thought he was seeing one, when standing not three feet away was … Harold Finch. He was wearing wire rimmed glasses again and his hair was longer, parted on the side. Gone was the three piece suit Finch always preferred, this Harold was dressed in dark jeans and a blue tee shirt with the logo of an electronics retailer printed in gold lettering across the front.

Reese blinked several times not believing that what he was seeing in front of him was real, until Harold moved closer, looking up at the taller man's face. “John. I'm here. It's me.”

“Finch...Harold?” John reached out a hand to brush his fingers across the whiskers on the other man's face. The rasp of the stubble and the warmth of flesh beneath his fingertips confirmed this was not imagination, Finch was standing before him.

Reese placed both hands on the older man's face and dropped his head to kiss Harold. At first the contacts was brushing the other’s lips tenderly and sweetly, tentatively asking with his own, if he could take more, give more. When Finch moaned into the kiss, John deepened it. Each opened their mouths, taking turns tasting one another, tongue over teeth, tongue tangling with tongue, until they had to pause to catch their breath.

Harold pulled away and hearing John's gasp of confusion, grabbed his reunited lover's hand pulling him to follow. “They didn't find it. Nothing in there has been touched.”

In his slow limping gait Finch led John to a place in the old building only the two knew about. Behind a movable book shelf was a hidden room with only a bed and a nightstand next to it. Harold had shown him the alcove when John had jokingly asked once if Finch slept there in The Library.

The first time they had tried to make love in that very room, the fruition of denying their feelings any longer the result of yet another life threatening situation for both men, had ended abruptly by the arrival of Finch's other operative.

“There will be no interruptions this time, John. I know this is rather inconvenient, but I needed to be with you. This is all right is it not?”

~~*~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is smex of the explicit kind....


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even though John had initiated their kiss, still dumbstruck at finally seeing his friend and lover again, Reese just stood there unmoving, gaping at the other man as if any moment he might disappear.
> 
> The pleasure of being reunited with his partner that had painted Harold’s face moments earlier quickly faded replaced by a doubtful grimace. “My apologies Mr. Reese, I seem to have assumed too much. I was hoping that we….I thought that you…” Looking past the taller man Finch’s shoulders slumped as he tried to walk out of the room.
> 
> “No, don’t go!” Reese grabbed the fleeing man’s arm, turning him around. “Please?” Desperate to keep Finch from leaving, John released his hold on the shorter man’s arm, grasped both his shoulders and pinned Harold against the wall using his own body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rather explicit so if you want to move on to the final chapter feel free.  
> But if you like to read something steamy (least that's what I tried for)  
> READ ON!!!!

Banner by my wonderful beta and friend Managerie

 

Even though John had initiated their kiss, still dumbstruck at finally seeing his friend and lover again, Reese just stood there unmoving, gaping at the other man as if any moment he might disappear.

The pleasure of being reunited with his partner that had painted Harold’s face moments earlier quickly faded replaced by a doubtful grimace. “My apologies Mr. Reese, I seem to have assumed too much. I was hoping that we...I thought that you…” Looking past the taller man Finch’s shoulders slumped as he tried to walk out of the room.

“No, don’t go!” Reese grabbed the fleeing man’s arm, turning him around. “Please?” Desperate to keep Finch from leaving, John released his hold on the shorter man’s arm, grasped both his shoulders and pinned Harold against the wall using his own body.

Knowing the extent of Finch’s previous injuries, Reese hadn’t used much force restraining him, so he knew Harold’s groan wasn’t one of pain. “I do want you,” John growled out huskily before lowering his head to crush his willing prisoner’s lips with hungry bruising kisses.

John slid his hands from his lover’s shoulders down the softness of the tee covering Harold’s chest before placing his hands flat against the wall and bending his knees slightly. He pushed up and into Harold’s growing hardness with his own as the other man’s trembling hands caressed his back. Both men rutted against each other following a rhythm of thrusts, Harold’s groping hands, whimpers and hungry kisses.

Reese pushed himself up and away when Harold had begged against his lips, “I want to see you and touch you.” The desire in John’s eyes let his lover know without words that he needed the same.

With trembling fingers his yearning companion reached out to undo the buttons of the worn denim work shirt John wore now. He stilled the shaky hands with his slightly more steady ones entwining their fingers and raising them to his mouth, kissing each knuckle of the older man’s fingers. Each digit lovingly tasted John lowered their joined hands, brushing his thumbs over the softer skin on the back of Harold’s smaller hands, hands not work roughened as his own larger ones. “Let me,” John huffed out, his own breathing still ragged.

Hearing the swift intake of breath and watching eyes growing wider with lust behind the glasses’ lenses as he undressed himself, John’s own passion grew. He wanted to strip slowly, to preen before his lover, slowly revealing toned muscles honed even more from his labor, only his length was getting painfully hard in the confines of his jeans.

Backing the few steps to be able to sit on the bed, John hastily untied the laces of his workman's boots, pulling them off along with the crew socks and chucking them all to the side. Then Reese stood to rid himself of the confines of denim and cotton. John’s eyes never left the other man’s face and when his long thick cock bobbed free fully erect, he watched Harold run his tongue over that twisted lower lip before sucking it into his mouth, biting it, trying to contain the needful whimper that escaped anyways.

Both men moved close again, John allowing his lover to look upon his nude body, to be touched and explored by smaller gentler hands. He closed his eyes, reveling in the worship of fingers brushing like feathers over the brown pebbles of his hardened nipples, down his chest and across the taut muscles of his abdomen. When one hand grasped his balls and the other encircled his length, Reese thrust into the hold several times before it became too much, his eyes snapped open and John begged his partner to stop.

“I need to see you now!” John groaned, responding to those hands dropping suddenly from his body and Harold’s brief sigh of disappointment. Finch always hesitant to bare himself and show his scars, even in front of the only person to have seen him so intimately, took a deep breath before swallowing hard. When the anxious man nodded his assent, Reese was so overwhelmed by the amount of faith the maimed man had in his lover to look upon his battered body without pity or disgust, that it shook John to his core.

Reaching across the arm’s length between them he removed Harold’s glasses, folding and placing them on the bedside table. John slid his hands under the hem of the blue tee Finch wore, caressing the heated skin of the smaller man. When he felt his skittish partner relax under his touch, John slid his hands up Harold’s sides, bringing the cotton shirt up along with them. When they reached his underarms, Harold raised his hands as if in surrender to allow John to pull the tee shirt up and off to toss on top of Reese’s discarded clothes.

A strand of Finch’s longer hair fell down on his forehead, which John pushed back kissing across where the stray lock had fallen. “I could never hurt you.” Reese promised, whispering in the broken man’s ear.

Reaching down to unbutton the fly in Finch’s jeans, John smiled for a split second, even in his haste to see the other man bare. Of course Harold Finch, whoever, whatever he was now would never wear anything that had a zipper in the fly. Zipper or buttons were quickly forgotten when Reese reached under the waistband of Finch’s boxers and felt pre-cum oozing from the head of Harold’s hard cock. John needed to taste his lover’s tangy-sweetness again.

Sitting down on the bed once more, Reese urged Finch to use his shoulders for balance after he anxiously tugged down both jeans and boxers. Holding tightly, Harold lifted each foot as John pulled off each shoe and each sock so he could step out of the legs of his pants and underwear.

When his lover finally stood naked in front of him John raised his face letting Harold see only banked desire and unfulfilled longing written on his features.

While John’s chest was smooth and practically free of hair, Harold’s was liberally covered with brown gray matting. The hair on his stomach was dark brown almost black. Unlike the curling softness surrounding pink nipples, this patch of hair lay flat shaped as a v pointing to a curling mass of even darker hair surrounding the treasure John sought.

Reaching up, he ran his fingers through hair on the stomach and chest to pinch at the pink nipples causing Harold to gasp and thrust his hips forward, his cock jutting out. All John needed to do was open his mouth and move his head forward just a fraction to capture Harold’s leaking tip with his tongue.

After sucking the head in, capturing its fluid and swallowing, John wanted more. Moving his hands down the other man’s chest Reese clutched Finch’s hips pulling him forward and the man’s hardness further into his mouth, the cock head touching the back of his throat.

Massaging Finch's hips, especially Harold’s damaged one, the plump cheeks of his ass, and back to hips John tried to urge the man to thrust into his mouth. Feeling the trembling tautness in Finch’s sides as he tried to resist frustrated John; he pulled off, lifted the other man’s hands and put them atop his own head. John wrapped his hand around Finch’s shaft stroking him several times before taking the full length in his mouth once more gradually sucking and gulping it in.

Gripping Finch's thighs like before, John used his hands again to urge his lover to fuck into his mouth. The hands on Reese's head roughly carded through his hair, before clutching it tightly. Harold whimpered, “John…I need...” and Finch gave in to his want to plunge into wet warmth. Reese moved his head in time with Harold’s now desperate thrusts in his need to climax. A need that that been built so much during their months of separation that it only took a few frantic pushes before Finch spilled in his lover’s mouth, John swallowing every drop.

Reese released the softening organ from his mouth to look up at the bliss on his lover’s face. When Harold opened his eyes to touch Reese’s face so lovingly, John gently pulled the sated man down to lay alongside him on the bed.

The reunited partners faced one another, touching and exploring, getting reacquainted with the other’s body. John rewarded the scarred man’s faith in him by reverently brushing gentle fingertips over the puckered ridges of damaged flesh, intently looking into the other man’s kind pale blue eyes, “I love you. All of you.”

The former agent's body was marked by healed wounds he’d received in battles or on CIA assignments; some even with his job working with Finch, yet Harold touched those with awe and wonderment. Even after hearing his partner and lover declaring how he felt, Harold still gazed upon John’s handsome face with amazement that this brave battled scarred ex-soldier wanted him.

Reese leaned in to reaffirm his words with another hungry open mouthed kiss when Harold felt John’s hardness pressing into his belly. Trying to move downward intent on giving back what the older man had received; John stopped him by partially covering Harold’s body with his own. “Just touch me, Harold. Please?”

John moaned his approval when Harold slicked up his hand with the fluid leaking from Reese’s throbbing cock head and wrapped it around John's shaft. Reese raised himself on his elbows, one on each side of Finch’s head and neck. With his eyes locked onto Harold’s widened ones, John moved his hips slowly, pumping into the man’s hold on his cock. Like the other man’s, his ardor had only intensified despite being suppressed during their long separation and John came quickly covering Harold’s hand and chest with his milky white essence.

John rolled off lying flat on his back, his eyes closed, when he felt Finch reach over him and take something out of the drawer. Through lidded eyes Reese watched his ever fussy partner clean his hand and chest with a pre-moistened disposable cloth before tossing it away and leaning back, a totally contented smile on his face.

~~*~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next the short and sweet happily ever after [I know, it won't ever happen in canon. ;( ]


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reese hadn’t realized he had dozed off when he awoke several hours later, alone and with Finch gone. John felt angry at first believing Harold had just left without a word until he spotted a piece of paper lying on Finch’s pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ending. I think its sweet too.

Banner by my beta and good friend Managerie

Reese hadn’t realized he had dozed off when he awoke several hours later, alone and with Finch gone. John felt angry at first believing Harold had just left without a word until he spotted a piece of paper lying on Finch’s pillow.

_I didn’t want to wake you. You looked so peaceful lying there. But unfortunately I do have my new identity to maintain and a job to show up at. And so do you. My former chess partner and our old nemesis, Carl Elias, is technically your new employer, GHC is one of his holdings. It was with his help that I was able to meet with you here today. Take what you think we may need, as one day I believe we will work together again in our mission. I left you my card. I can’t put you in danger with **it** still watching, but, if you chose to seek me out, I will be waiting._

_Love H._

On the nightstand John found a business card,  **Harold Davis computer technician and sales representative** , printed in gold lettering on the front. He turned the card over and found an address written with Harold’s precise handwriting.

John spent the remaining two hours of Williams' shift cleaning up the rest of the destruction from Decima’s men. However, John only took Finch’s cup that he had found miraculously unbroken.

Locking up the door for possibly the last time, Reese bade a silent farewell to the old building. His home the last three years hadn’t been a wood and brick building, home was being with the one he loved wherever that may be.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

It was a warm Sunday evening when John parked his old Chevy outside the apartment complex in Brighton Beach. It was in Elias’ territory now and Reese was surprised at the building’s reformation since Reese had aided an innocent high school teacher there. The man that reminded him so much of Finch turned out to be Elias, but that didn’t matter now. Because of an old enemy’s help John had been reunited with Harold and was meeting with Finch today

Knocking on the door of apartment #705, John heard the excited barking of a dog. When his friend answered, stepping aside to let Reese by, John walked into the apartment closing its door behind him. The golden light of the setting sun coming through an un-shuttered window illuminated the two men as Harold Davis pulled John Williams into his waiting arms.

They were both home.

~*~*~*~ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. 
> 
> I really would love to hear what you think, except be kind lol.
> 
> If you really like this a kudo would be appreciated. [Send a self addressed stamped envelope I'll send you a cookie. =)]
> 
> If you didn't. I'm sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading....feed back is love =)


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